Black Hat Oculus – Asymmetrical Cooperative Virtual Reality Game
There is no doubt about the fact that the Oculus VR is currently the leading virtual reality company. Although the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset is not out yet, it has managed to cause quite a stir and people all around the world can’t wait to get their hands on it.
Moreover, many gaming companies are not at all deterred by this fact and are continuing to create immersive experiences for the Rift. Black Hat Oculus is one such example. Black Hat Oculus, developed by an indie gaming company called Team Future, recently got its funding through Kickstarter. It is an asymmetrical multi-player cooperative stealth game where one player uses the Oculus Rift headset to steer through the dangerous virtual world packed with deadly traps and cunning agents tailing behind and the other player helping him out.
Unlike many other multi-player games, Black Hat Oculus is an asymmetric cooperative game. In the asymmetrical multi-player games, each player has a different role and abilities while in the usual multi-player mode, all the players have the same role and are doing the same thing. There is no denying that the asymmetric mode certainly makes the game far more interesting and thrilling.
The concept unfolded in MIT Global Game Jam and is actually really simple. One of the gamers, Hammer, will put on the Oculus Rift headset and will navigate through the virtual world to achieve the goals by avoiding guards, traps and overcoming other difficulties from first person point of view. The other player, Spice, has a bird’s eye view of the game and helps Hammer by warning him about the threats he can’t see yet, setting off alarms and incapacitating opponents.
The game is rather similar to Cyber Heist, one of the IGF 2014 Student Showcase winners, except that the player with the first person perspective was not using the Oculus Rift headset. It also has many things common to Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a local cooperative gameplay developed by Global Game Jam. Nowadays the developers of Black Hat Oculus are running a Kickstarter campaign with a funding goal of $4,200 which seems to be going on well.
Playthrough of one of Black Hat Oculus’s Levels – Prison
For more information on Black Hat Oculus and how it takes asymmetrical cooperative to virtual reality, please visit:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/23/black-hat-oculus-takes-asymmetrical-co-op-to-virtual-reality/
http://www.techspot.com/news/58169-stealth-co-op-game-black-hat-oculus-puts-just-one-player-inside-the-virtual-world.html
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/oculus-rift-creator-people-dont-yet-understand-app/1100-6422516/
